Under a memorandum signed with the Economic
Development Ministry and the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Goldman Sachs will
promote Russia’s contacts with international rating agencies, help organize
roadshows, and bring together Russian officials with investors to improve the
perception abroad of Russia's investment climate.

President Vladimir Putin ordered the
government last year to improve Russia’s ranking in the World Bank’s Doing
Business Index from 120th in 2011 to 20th by 2018. In the latest study
published by the World Bank in October, Russia had climbed eight places to
112th.

The image-polishing drive will not be just
a substitute for efforts to improve Russia’s investment climate, as these
processes should go hand in hand, Belyakov said.

Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Managing
Director Sergei Arsenyev said one thing he would recommend is for the Russian
government to make its work more open.

“The government and key departments, ministries
and key officials should be open for dialog with investors. It seems to me that
this is what was missing and this is what we hear very often,” he said

Paolo Zannoni, Goldman Sachs' head in
Russia, said: “We are very pleased to have expanded our cooperation with the
Russian Government. Our focus will be on facilitating dialogue of the Russian
Government with key international investors and enhancing the country's work
with key ratings agencies.”

Goldman Sachs has a long history of
involvement with the Russian government, starting with the early reforms under
Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar and his “shock therapy” reforms in 1992.

Leonid Grigoryev, Deputy Economics Minister
and chairman of the government's foreign investment commission, told the Los
Angeles Times in early 1992 that Goldman Sachs will be “a new force inside the
country working on the side of the Russian government,” adding the bank would
also advise the government in dealings with the West and help protect Russian
interests in negotiations.

“We want to attract serious Western
business investment in Russia and speed up the country's economic
transformation,” he said then.

The bank pulled out of Russia after the
1998 financial crisis, the New York Times reported, but returned in the
mid-2000s alongside most of their major competitors.